It should work as a Diners' Club card (which Discover owns in some sense) in some of Europe, though that doesn't help much with

A Discover Card should also be able to be swiped as a JCB (Japan), BC (Worst Korea), or UnionPay (China) card. Which are widely accepted in their countries, but the trick is getting the shopkeep in bumfark China that this all-English obscure card is a UnionPay card.

In the US, Discover acceptance is not quite universal, but on a par with American Express. Most establishments I do business with take all four majors, even hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants and mom-and-pop garden shops. Of the ones that don't, most are Visa/MC/AX combos, though every once in a while I'll visit a Visa/MC/Discover shop.

Abroad, check with your issuer, regardless of the card. In the US, MasterCard is accepted by all merchants who accept Visa, and vice-versa. Elsewhere, they're not joined at the hip. That could lead to a surprise if you're a Visa carrier in a MasterCard country.

Discover keeps sending me offers and I keep tossing them in the trash because they don't offer a better APR than my Visa cards.

dramatools:In the US, Discover acceptance is not quite universal, but on a par with American Express. Most establishments I do business with take all four majors, even hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants and mom-and-pop garden shops. Of the ones that don't, most are Visa/MC/AX combos, though every once in a while I'll visit a Visa/MC/Discover shop.

Abroad, check with your issuer, regardless of the card. In the US, MasterCard is accepted by all merchants who accept Visa, and vice-versa. Elsewhere, they're not joined at the hip. That could lead to a surprise if you're a Visa carrier in a MasterCard country.

Discover keeps sending me offers and I keep tossing them in the trash because they don't offer a better APR than my Visa cards.

They do, til they plug their free wifi into the point-of-sale network that the wait staff also uses to browse funnyjunk and tmz on their breaks. then the entire network gets pwnt, cards get skimmed for months and when the incident responders show up everyones dur hur and wut?

Then visa says you can't take cards any more.

The number of mom and pop restaurants that won't take anything but cash, typically they ran right into what happens when you can't secure a network.

My Discover card is one of the few big businesses that I have no complaints with. Rarely have any kind of issue with them, and when I did they fixed it. Then again, I rarely carry a balance so interest rates don't really concern me.

ChrisDe:My Discover card is one of the few big businesses that I have no complaints with. Rarely have any kind of issue with them, and when I did they fixed it. Then again, I rarely carry a balance so interest rates don't really concern me.

I use Discover almost exclusively. The only thing I don't like is that I have to sign up for the rewards instead of them just giving them to me. I like that the cash back reward goes right to my Amazon account. I also like their customer service.

Generation_D:They do, til they plug their free wifi into the point-of-sale network that the wait staff also uses to browse funnyjunk and tmz on their breaks. then the entire network gets pwnt, cards get skimmed for months and when the incident responders show up everyones dur hur and wut?

Then visa says you can't take cards any more.

The number of mom and pop restaurants that won't take anything but cash, typically they ran right into what happens when you can't secure a network.

Aaahhh.... Good ol' PCI-DSS. Perhaps those merchants should have gotten a terminal that handles the encryption for them (they exist-- I've looked into it). I'd like to see some case studies on that, since most of the breaches that become public are the ones like TJX and Certegy. In food service, I expect employee skimming is a bigger problem.

StrandedInAZ:ChrisDe: My Discover card is one of the few big businesses that I have no complaints with. Rarely have any kind of issue with them, and when I did they fixed it. Then again, I rarely carry a balance so interest rates don't really concern me.

I use Discover almost exclusively. The only thing I don't like is that I have to sign up for the rewards instead of them just giving them to me. I like that the cash back reward goes right to my Amazon account. I also like their customer service.

This. I keep my discover card and use it as my primary mostly because of their customer service. They've always treated me fairly and with respect. When I signed up they did do the fast talk on the add on services. I politely but firmly told them no and that was that. No hassle or mess here.

skinink:I guess Discover is doing badly if they have to trick people into getting charged for those services.

And when I had Discover, they were accepted most everywhere. And they would always raise my maximum limit. For the salary I had then, they really gave me too much of a credit line.

Not doing badly just doing what all the credit cards were doing, Citi and Capital One have already had similar booms lowered on them for basicallythe same practice. It was SOP until there was a CFPB to regulate these sleazebags.

For the record, that's nearly $500 million in money transferred from greedy banks back to consumers, without some class action lawyers taking 90% for "legal fees" courtesy of one government agency. An agency Mitt Romney has vowed to either abolish or neuter if he gets elected by the way.

Years ago I was housed by Discover telemarketers to sign up for this service. Then one day I was asked if they could 'send information' about the insurance and I said yes. From that day forward, I was charged for the insurance. I called several times and was assured the charges would stop, backed up the calls with letters and emails -- the charges never stopped. I canceled the card and still received bills for the charges, with interest. It was insane. You better believe the first mailing I got about a class action suit, I signed up.

I only pay 100% cash for everything that I buy and I got a 2.5% 15-year fixed mortgage on my house which was appraised for triple what I paid for it so you know it's worth that much.

I pay for everything with cards, and then use other cards to pay off the first cards. Thanks to constantly rising credit limits, this is all stuck in an infinite loop, and I never have to actually pay a bill for anything I buy!

dramatools:Generation_D: They do, til they plug their free wifi into the point-of-sale network that the wait staff also uses to browse funnyjunk and tmz on their breaks. then the entire network gets pwnt, cards get skimmed for months and when the incident responders show up everyones dur hur and wut?

Then visa says you can't take cards any more.

The number of mom and pop restaurants that won't take anything but cash, typically they ran right into what happens when you can't secure a network.

Aaahhh.... Good ol' PCI-DSS. Perhaps those merchants should have gotten a terminal that handles the encryption for them (they exist-- I've looked into it). I'd like to see some case studies on that, since most of the breaches that become public are the ones like TJX and Certegy. In food service, I expect employee skimming is a bigger problem.

Tokenization and end-to-end is the way to go. But that'd cost money. So much better when your manager knows computers and can just plug everything in and have it working in a few minutes.

When a business I worked for changed owners and opened new accounts to accept Visa/MasterCard/etc, Discover was the only one that offered to give the business owner the names, addresses, and shopping habits of their customers in a 15 mile radius of our shop. Sure, that may be typical now, but back in 1997 that seemed really creepy. We decided *not* to go with Discover because of it.

Discover is awesome. Not as awesome as they used to be. You used to be able to use their 'cash back bonus' to purchase merchandise in select retailers for 20 cents on the dollar. (These days it's more like 65-75 cents on the dollar). They have notified me EVERY TIME there is the slightest chance of fraud. They have sided with me EVERY time I have had a merchant dispute. Discover is not good in Europe and I pay off my balance each month. Have not carried any credit card debt since the mid-80's. You always get 1% of your purchases back and often 5% bonus for groceries, gas, and hotels during select periods.

Dahnkster:Discover is awesome. Not as awesome as they used to be. You used to be able to use their 'cash back bonus' to purchase merchandise in select retailers for 20 cents on the dollar. (These days it's more like 65-75 cents on the dollar). They have notified me EVERY TIME there is the slightest chance of fraud. They have sided with me EVERY time I have had a merchant dispute. Discover is not good in Europe and I pay off my balance each month. Have not carried any credit card debt since the mid-80's. You always get 1% of your purchases back and often 5% bonus for groceries, gas, and hotels during select periods.

A few months ago, Amazon started allowing Discover customers to use their cash back bonus on the full dollar to purchase anything on the site.

Myria:Is it true that card companies will charge retailers a higher percentage for rewards cards? I heard something like this, but don't know how to confirm it.

Generally they make their money back with higher fees/APR than non-reward cards.

Dahnkster: You always get 1% of your purchases back and often 5% bonus for groceries, gas, and hotels during select periods.

Depends on your card; the 5% rotating bonus comes with a 1% cashback on other purchases...after you spend $3000 on non 5% bonus spending. You only get .25% on that first $3000, and you can't buy things at discount/warehouse stores to apply to the $3000. Basically, get a Discover card and use it only on the items in the 5% cashback schedule and through the shopdiscover for items you would purchase anyway. For example, i purchased a low-level pushmower for my lawn and got 10% back through shopdiscover + this quarter's bonus.

MatrixOutsider:A few months ago, Amazon started allowing Discover customers to use their cash back bonus on the full dollar to purchase anything on the site.

Not worth it unless you don't want to wait to use your rewards. You would be better off buying the item on a card that gives a reward and using the Discover cashback towards your statement/gift cards. Some of the gift cards are very good deals if you were going to that store anyway.

If you don't have a card that generates cashback or airline miles, you're missing a good opportunity. Especially if you make a lot of purchases for a business that you are reimbursed for - essentially moving those purchases through the card for the side benefit.

Costco Amex typically has a good cashback card offer, and American Airlines AAdvantage program is a good one to get a card for if they fly to places you want to go.

I had a Discover card in my late 20s, for maybe 5 years, and closed it around 1990. About three years ago I got a letter from Discover with 'my new Discover card enclosed', with my account date back to when I had it. I was *PISSED*, since I had done ZERO business with them for close to 20 years, but here they were doing me a favor by reopening my account and sending a new card along, to an addresss FOUR major moves later. WTF?

I have Discover, and Discover only, to thank for having excellent credit. They allowed me to transfer my high-interest Chase card debts to them, at 0% for a year, and giving me an additional $9000 credit limit in the process.

The old debt will be paid off before the 0% term runs out, and that unused $9000 grand plus the payed off Chase literally bumped me from having bad to absolutely excellent credit...

I don't care that its not accepted everywhere. They hooked me up, and if i ever have to use a card in a pinch, i'll trying using Discover rather than the Chase Visa cards.